Glutamate

Abstract

The first study of the actons of the excitatory amino acid l-glutamate* on the brain was carried out more than 30 years ago. In 1954, Hayashi found that application of glutamate to the surface of the cerebral cortex evoked strong convulsive activity. A few years later Curtis et al. (1960) demonstrated that microiontophoretic administration of glutamate in the vicinity of spinal neurons of the cat produced intense discharges of action potentials recorded extracellularly.